This section is intended to provide background or context to the invention recited in the claims. The description of the background art may include insights, discoveries, understandings or disclosures, or associations of disclosures not known in the prior art. Some contributions of the invention may be specifically pointed out below, whereas other contributions of the invention will be apparent from their context.
Surgical implants such as degradable tissue scaffolds can be used to fill defects in soft tissue or bone. These defects may be caused by removal of a tumour, or by bone or cartilage loss in a hip or knee replacement procedure, for example. Orthopaedic tissue engineering is a field concerned with the development of tissue scaffolds which are used to treat injuries or diseases in bone, and which are compatible with the patient's own biology. Tissue scaffolds may be utilised for both humans and animals.
Orthopaedic injuries or diseases vary significantly on a case by case basis. Highly invasive surgical procedures such as hip replacements can result in significant bone loss, leaving a defect in the bone. Each patient is different, not only in the size of the bone in question but also in the dimensions of the defect. Custom built scaffolds may therefore be desirable. However, their design and manufacture can be extremely expensive. The patient concerned must undergo detailed MRI or CT scans, which must be interpreted by both a surgeon and a tissue engineer with 3D modelling experience. The tissue scaffold must then be manufactured in advance of the surgery, at significant cost to the patient or to the healthcare provider.
FIG. 1 shows a degradable polymer tissue scaffold produced in line with recent developments, as discussed above. Computed tomography (CT) imaging data was used to reconstruct a defect in the jaw of a dog with an aggressive type of bone cancer. After designing a scaffold to fill the defect using the CT imaging data, a polymer implant was fabricated using 3D printing techniques. FIG. 2 illustrates the same implant as it appears when implanted in the jaw. The implant is located towards the left hand side of the jaw.
Recent developments in the manufacture of tissue scaffolds utilise 3D printing. For example, CN103977451 discloses a 3D printing manufacturing method for an artificial bone scaffold. However, even where customer scaffolds are produced from scan data and accurately manufactured by a technique such as 3D printing, they still do not always fit accurately. US2012/0271418 describes a biocompatible and implantable tissue scaffold having a modular design comprising a tissue scaffold rack designed to accommodate one or more modules.